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The cover of Four Thousand Weeks

Four Thousand Weeks

Oliver Burkeman, 2021

Life is about four thousand weeks long. This book shows why trying to master time backfires, and how facing your limits helps you spend it on what counts.

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14 parts, about 23 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Argues that productivity tricks fail because life is short and finite, and accepting that you cannot do everything is freeing
  • Helps you choose what to neglect, limit work in progress, tolerate discomfort and stop living only for some future moment
  • Oliver Burkeman writes as a former productivity columnist, blending history and philosophy into a case against total control of time

Who it is for

  • Busy professionals buried in endless to do lists
  • Productivity enthusiasts who feel busier than ever
  • Readers facing big life choices they keep postponing

What the summary covers

  1. Four thousand weeks2 min
  2. Time became a thing to use3 min
  3. The efficiency trap2 min
  4. Facing finitude1 min
  5. Becoming a better procrastinator1 min
  6. Distraction2 min
  7. We never really have time1 min
  8. You are here2 min
  9. Rediscovering rest1 min
  10. The power of patience2 min
  11. Time together1 min
  12. Cosmic insignificance therapy1 min
  13. The human disease2 min
  14. Beyond hope2 min

Recommended by

  • Daniel H. PinkAuthor of Drive and When
    This profound (and often hilarious) book will prompt you to rethink your worship of efficiency, reject the cult of busyness, and reconfigure your life around what truly matters

About the author

  • Oliver BurkemanBritish author and former Guardian columnist
    • Born in 1975, British author and journalist
    • Educated at Huntington School, York, and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he edited the student newspaper Varsity
    • Graduated in 1994 with a degree in social and political sciences
    • Wrote the Guardian weekly psychology column This Column Will Change Your Life from 2006 to 2020
    • Reported from London, Washington and New York
    • Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2006 and won the Foreign Press Association Young journalist of the year award
    • His writing has also appeared in the Observer, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; lived in Brooklyn for over a decade, now in the North York Moors in England
    • Now produces the Imperfectionist newsletter

Read it alongside

  • Puts it into practiceEssentialism

    Oliver Burkeman says the real task is deciding what not to do and resisting middling priorities. Greg McKeown offers a method: score an option out of 100 on your most important criterion, treat anything under 90 as a no, and decline the rest with prepared, graceful refusals.

  • Goes deeperDopamine Nation

    Oliver Burkeman says we often welcome distraction to escape the discomfort of demanding tasks, and should accept that discomfort. Anna Lembke explains what fleeing can cost: pleasure and pain work like a balance, repeated reward tips it toward pain, and intermittent exposure to pain can shift its set point toward pleasure.

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